October 3, 2006

andre bazin’s representation theory claims that ‘the photographic image is the object itself’. however, an alternative view concedes that photographs are not representations in bazin’s sense by assuming, as kendall walton has argued, that ‘photographs are transparent’. (to say that photographs are transparent is to say that we can ‘see through’ them.)

as he says, ‘the invention of the camera gave us not just a new method of making pictures and not just pictures of a new kind: it gave us a new way of seeing … the photographs literally allow us to see the objects that they depict. seeing photographs as photographs engages aesthetic interests that are not engaged by seeing the objects that they are of.’